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Toronto airport rail construction to cost $129 million: Aecon

Aecon Group Inc. (TSX:ARE) announced its AirLINX Transit joint venture with Dufferin Construction Company has reached commercial and financial close on the Air Rail Link to Toronto-Lester B. Pearson International Airport, valued at $128.6 million. The project is scheduled for completion by 2014, a year before the Toronto 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games.

Aecon Group Inc. (TSX:ARE) announced Monday that its AirLINX Transit joint venture with Dufferin Construction Company has reached commercial and financial close on the Air Rail Link to Lester B. Pearson International Airport, valued at $128.6 million. The project is scheduled for completion by 2014, a year before the Toronto 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games.

The Air Rail Link, owned by the province through Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx, includes a three-kilometre spur line from an existing railway track to the airport, beside the community of Malton, which is in the City of Mississauga just outside Toronto.

The existing section of track, known as the Weston Subdivision, was sold by Canadian National Railway Company to Metrolinx, the provincial crown corporation responsible for inter-city transit.

The Air Rail Link, which also includes construction of a station at the airport, utility relocations and crossings over major roadways and Mimico Creek, is intended to enable train service every 15 minutes between the airport and Union Station in time for the Pan Am Games.

Aecon, which is a 50-per-cent partner in the project, stated in a press release that financing for the project is provided by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Laurentian Bank of Canada, National Bank of Canada and The Toronto-Dominion Bank. National Bank Financial has acted as Financial Advisor for the project, Aecon says.

The project will be executed using the design-build-finance model under the Infrastructure Ontario alternative financing and procurement (AFP) model.

Construction will start in the spring of 2012 and is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2014.

The consortium was selected in October as the “preferred proponent” for the project.

“Aecon has been part of some of Ontario's largest transportation projects including Highway 407, the Gardiner Expressway, the Queen Elizabeth Way and is now building a part of the Toronto Transit Commission's subway system expansion,” Aecon chief operating officer Teri McKibbon stated in a press release. “We look forward to continuing this history and working with Dufferin Construction, Infrastructure Ontario, Metrolinx and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, to bring our infrastructure construction expertise to this pivotal transportation network.”

Daily Commercial News subscribers may view more information on Metrolinx and its projects by viewing company ID 842091 in Reed Construction Data Canada Building Reports.